The Acts of the Democracies

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1995

Israel and Palestine

Israel and the PLO sign a peace agreement. Palestinians are given limited self
rule in selected areas but Israel retains the right to control 145 settlements (colonies), 128 of them armed,
with thousands of troops.

Under the Agreement, the West Bank (the occupied territories minus Gaza) would
be divided into three areas:

Area A: 3% of the West Bank (made up of Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem and 80% of Hebron) would be controlled by an elected Palestinian Authority.

Area B: 23% of the West Bank (440 villages and their surrounding lands) would have Palestinian civilian control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security.

Area C: 74% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and including the 145 settlements, their access roads and 20% of Hebron would remain under complete Israeli control.

The city of Hebron was to be split into two. 20% of the city (including the best commercial areas) would be
reserved for the 450 heavily armed Jewish settlers. The remaining 80% would be for the 130,000
Palestinians, who are often subject to curfews and restrictions of movement.

Between 1992 (when Yitzak Rabin was elected Prime Minister of Israel) and 1995, the settler (colonist) population in the
West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights (but
not including East Jerusalem) increased from 78,400 to 136,000. Land for the building of settlements is
confiscated from the Palestinians.

Israeli policy in the West Bank was splitting the Arab areas into cantons criss-crossed by Jewish-only
settlements and their Jewish-only access roads. This, and the need for Palestinians to hold and show passes
leads Tanya Reinhart, a professor from Tel Aviv University, to compare the situation in the occupied territories
to apartheid in South Africa.

The USA vetoes a United Nations resolution confirming that the expropriation of land by Israel in
East Jerusalem is invalid and in violation of United Nations resolutions and the Geneva Convention.